In the short story "The Dead Man" by Horacio Quiroga, a man who is cleaning a row of foliage at a banana plantation slips on a piece of bark and is impaled by his machete. As he lies on the grass, he realizes that he is dying. Most of the story tells of his last moments of life. During this time, he considers the uncertainties of life and what it means to die. Time seems to slow down. He notices details in the environment around him. He recalls what he was doing recently and what should be happening in a short time according to his daily routine. At one point, he rationalizes that he cannot be dying but merely resting: he knows how to handle a machete properly, he is on the plantation, and his horse is nearby. During all these musings, he has not yet died but is living his last moments before death.

In the last paragraph the writer uses a subtle but definitive technique to show readers that the man has died: he shifts the story viewpoint from the man to the horse. This is an indication that the man is no longer there. Additionally, the man is referred to as "the bundle," and the horse has the confidence to pass "the lying man—who has already rested." In this context, the writer has substituted the word "rested" for "died," but he means to state that, by this time, the man has already died.